Wow.

I hadn't noticed this until now but it appears that the spine slightly shifted while it was at CGC.

You can see the alignment of the spine right after my pressing and then when it came back to me from CGC and there looks to be a subtle change.

My recent posts have revolved around the recent news of the passing of two great comic giants.

Neal Adams and George Perez.

Add in Andrew Fletcher and it's already too much.

RIP.

So upon George Perez's passing I knew I missed this opportunity...

https://www.cgccomics.com/news/article/9738/george-perez-signing/

... and that I should've contributed.

Thank you George Perez for making my eyes bleed with your amazing attention to detail and thank you for your contributions to our imagination.

After George's passing I went looking for a couple of books that I had my eyes on. One of those was The New Teen Titans Annual #2 with the first appearance of The Vigilante and so I decided to buy this copy in the moment of putting it off for so long.

The specialized label sealed it for me!

There's a small comic show next weekend and I'm hoping to find a couple of books there that I've been seeking... we'll see.

Today turned out to be a perfect day... the weather was just right and when you add in comics and beers, you can't lose.  I met up with my friend Rob at this small comic convention where we spent the good part of a couple of hours going through boxes of books.  He got a bunch of nice books as he was looking for Gold Key books with cool covers.  He kept saying he knew what he was looking for, but wasn't sure what it was.  I kind of understand that approach. I went in with a bunch of target books that I wanted to get and found one of them... a nice mid grade copy of Amazing Spider-Man 135 (the 2nd full appearance of the Punisher).  The price on the book that I found was a little bit high but I knew I could get it for less.  The problem was, that would've taken about all that I had left in my budget.  That same dealer also had a CGC old label copy of Alpha Flight #1 (9.2 White) at a good price and so I decided to get that book instead of the raw ASM 135 which would leave me with some extra money to get a couple other books that appealed to me but wasn't necessarily on my 'hit list'. Ultimately, I think that was right decision because I think I got a really nice deal on this copy of X-Men 87 which features the first attempt at their new improved costumes.  I read it and it's funny that at the end of the book, Marvel Girl announces that she's been working on a project with the Professor's blessing and redesigned each team member's costume.  The Angel announces that he really looks like an angel now...   ... Ok.

I forgot to mention that prior to going to the comic show, I went to our local flea market and found a nice assortment of books for a couple of dollars each.  I got some nice ASM McFarlane books as well as a pretty nice McFarlane Hulk #345.  The surprise of that morning's outing though was finding these two Mighty Mouse books from the 90's with homage covers.  Upon further investigation, it looks like almost the entire run was comprised of homage covers.  I just thought that was so cool.

These are my flea market pickups from earlier today...

So I felt that I had started the 'comic hunting' day on the right foot and was excited to continue the effort to the convention.

The first book I bought at the comic show was a pretty nice copy of Doctor Strange 177.  At a very small show earlier in the year, I picked up a copy of 176 and 178 so it was nice to find this one.  Shortly after, I had to go back and get the Doctor Strange Treasury because it was in such great shape and the price was right.  I think if I hadn't picked that up, Rob would've.  There was also this (to me) obscure Marvel magazine that seemed to keep following me so I had to get that which was $5... I'm now intrigued enough by it to seek out the other 2 issues.The only semi affordable big book that I looked at was a copy of Silver Surfer 1 but the price was too high for me based on the condition.  Just a quick side-note here but I'm more convinced than ever that EVERYONE is using this "Key Collector" app... I'll get to that in a later post. 

It certainly is a resourceful tool.

As I stated above, I picked up the Alpha Flight 1 (that purchase quelled my John Byrne fix!) and the last two raw books I bought there was a very nice copy of X-Men 87 (I think it would grade in the 8.0 plus range) and a low to mid grade copy of Fantastic Four 110... I so desperately want to someday find the color error variant of that book!

So yes, it was a fun, successful  convention and afterwards it was time for some tasty Belgian beers...  http://www.redhawkbrewing.com  .

Like I said, a great day that was now closing out by great beer, company and discussion!  It's funny thinking back to the afternoon... I talked about my posting of comics and music videos.  I had to admit to Rob that sometimes when I'm writing in this journal, I just want to hear a certain song and so I link it without there being any connection whatsoever. 

He asked me why I just don't listen to the song on its own?

Good point... and taken.

...

...

So here is how my week ended last weekend as I was going through some books...

I was listening to this amazing performance by Leon Bridges on Austin City Limits.  Shortly after, they showed a performance by a band called Khruangbin.  Now I had heard of them before, through their collaboration with Leon Bridges, but I hadn't seen them perform by themselves.  Well, Holy $#!... I was immediately transfixed.  Yes, I get it how many are hypnotized (mesmerized?) by Laura Lee (rightfully so) but as one person commented on one of their videos, Khruangbin consists of "The hip sway-er, the beat layer and the guitar slayer". 

I think that's a perfect observation!

So here's the point of this entry where I throw in some music videos... again, I think their sound magnificently compliments Leon Bridges, but simply on their own... this trio from Houston, Texas is phenomenal!

Apparently I'm just 7 years too late of realizing this.

I just love the juxtaposition of the Chevy Impala and the Spaceship on that one.

The last vacation I took from work was in 2019, right before "The end of the World". 

This week was my first vacation taken since I made the jump during the chaos that was... looking back, it was certainly the right decision!.

And so this week has been wonderful. 

I'm just very appreciative of all that is right now...

On Monday, we had to go up to my daughter's college to take care of a few things... afterwards, we stopped at an antique mall where I found a copy of Star Wars #2.  On the way back home, I tried to get a few pictures of the full moon with my new (used) camera but now that I've figured it out, I hope to be able to get some better images soon.

These were the very first 2 pictures I took of a half moon when I got the camera...

Yesterday, I had to take my stepson to the hospital for some rechecks and things are looking more positive with that and then today, my wife and I got to go to another antique shop where I found a comic I had neither seen or heard of before but after reading this one, I'm hooked on Fast Willie Jackson and would like to get the complete short run of 7 books.  Obviously this book is a little rough but I might be able to spruce it up a bit.

And now, as if this week couldn't get any better, I got Rob's Christmas all set up and it's not even July ... he's in big trouble and his car is definitely going up in smoke this year!

This afternoon we're trying another antique mall type of place and maybe I can find some more cool books!

The trip to a couple of antique stores didn't produce anything good, however I stopped at a comic shop about 40 miles north of here and that was a pleasant surprise.  This was a nice little shop that had an awesome vintage Star Trek pinball machine that I think anyone would absolutely love to have!

I had been searching all of my LCS's for a collected volume of the VisionQuest story line from West Coast Avengers and I was very happy to finally find one here at this shop!  I have most of the issues but there's one in particular that I wanted to re-read that I only have as a slabbed copy. 

As I've just started to read this volume, this one scene had me doing a double take and having to put the book down for a moment to contemplate this actual timeline.  So this was written by John Byrne in 1985 and this exchange between Wanda and Hank Pym had me questioning how Byrne came up with the idea of this technology 15 years before it was fairly mainstream.  In OS software and utilities, "Restore Points" are very commonplace now but was that the case in 1985 (37 years ago)?  

This is from Wikipedia...

Norton GoBack (previously WildFile GoBack, Adaptec GoBack, and Roxio GoBack) is a disk utility for Microsoft Windows that can record up to 8 GB of disk changes. When the filesystem is idle for a few seconds, it marks these as "safe points". The product allows the disk drive to be restored to any point within the available history. It also allows older versions of files to be restored, and previous versions of the whole disk to be browsed. Depending on disk activity, the typical history might cover a few hours to a few days.

• GoBack was designed by Wild File, Inc., a company located in Plymouth, Minnesota. The software was shown at COMDEX in November 1998 and released in December 1998. A patent for the technology was issued in January 2000.^{[3][4][5][6][7][8][9]}
• March 2000: Adaptec, Inc., acquires Wild File for approximately $29 million.^[8][10][11]
• April 2001: Adaptec creates spin-off company, Roxio, Inc., which retains the GoBack product.^[12]
• May 2001: Roxio GoBack 3 Deluxe is released, this time also supporting the NTFS filesystem, which by now was being used more widely since the release of Windows XP.^[13]
• August 2001: Symantec Corp. announces Norton SystemWorks 2002 which includes GoBack 3 Personal Edition by Roxio.^[14]
• April 2003: Roxio sells GoBack to Symantec for $13 million.^[15]
• September 2004: Norton GoBack 4.0 is released by Symantec and included in Norton SystemWorks 2005.^[16]

And this is the panel that had caused me to take a pause for a moment...

Of course this could be me being naive, but in 1985 I remember my first 'real' job which was at a bank encoding personal checks on what was called a Proof Machine. This dinosaur stretched out around 4 feet across... it was basically a fancy printer. It's funny but to this day I still go back and think of the 'training' that was provided for this job which involved memorizing larger groups of numbers.  That training never really amounted to much except for my super human ability to look at tractor trailer numbers quickly.

The computers that I was using in high school were mostly used to play Lode Runner and Chivalry, so the technology described in the pictured panel was unheard of to me!

Okay, that's enough of a flashback...

Aside, from the VisionQuest collected volume that I picked up, I also got a very cool WandaVision Tumbler. 

As for comics, I found a nice low grade copy of Marvel Tales #2 from 1965 along with a raw copy of Spawn #9.  That's a book that I'm speculating on but what a great drama story behind that issue! 

That's one I'll get to later.

Since I have a little bit of downtime here, I figured I'd try and catch up a little.

I know I need to get back to my continuity but I keep diverging from that route... for good reasons of course.  For instance, Father's Day.  I feel like I got the best gifts this year.  At this point in my life, I don't want anything. Come to think of it, I've never been that guy who has wanted anything.  My enjoyment in life comes from providing happiness and good will to those close to me.  That's my role and when I'm distant from that purpose, well that's when disaster tends to creep in.

But this Father's Day, I got a card from my step daughter and a text from my step son.  That's plenty and it means so much to me!

But from my wife and daughter, well they found some awesome gifts that I can't help but to share...

First off, my wife found me this awesome puzzle and even though "I'm not a puzzle guy", this is one that I'm really looking forward to doing!  I had no idea that there was a set of EC Comics covers that was released in puzzle form.  I think that's great!  My wife got me the Weird Science Fantasy 27 cover which of course reminds me of a fantastic Wally Wood book that I owned of the same title some years ago.

My daughter got me this card which would've been more than enough...

But of course she had to find something awesome that she knew I would love and that being this retro Kirby, Captain America goodness!

(This was another Mead pocket folder that I owned and loved!)

And so... it's about that time where I make plans for Rob's birthday and this year he has no idea that he's in line for an evil Cabbage Patch representative. 

Hopefully in a couple of weeks.

\

I'm certainly slacking here and it's not for a lack of content... maybe just the opposite. I have so much to discuss and this year is shaping up to be one of my better ones in terms of my activity within the hobby. Between shows and acquisitions and awesome discussions with Rob about all things comic and pop culture related... yes, this is a good year and I think it all started with WandaVision for me. 

That just ignited something in me that hasn't quieted and I'm welcoming that feeling wholeheartedly!

As a matter of fact, my wife and I just finished re-watching that series as a prequel to her watching Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness. I'm not sure how she's going to react to that now, immediately following re-watching the series. Now for me, it was a way to connect more things to Doctor Strange : MoM.  And just to throw this in here... I still have the same feelings and reactions to that series as I did the first time I watched it in the early months of 2021.  I think therein lies what it signified to me and how I so quickly became emotionally attached to this show. 

It was the release of what we all didn't know about... of what I've called 'The end of the World' (As we know it).

What Wanda had created for herself, in order to deal with her unbelievable grief, was a utopia based on her childhood memories.  How many of us can relate? How many of us would have done the same? How many of us are doing the same right here in virtual terms as I have?  As we came out of 2020, I just think that it was the perfect cathartic experience for some of us. One that has forever captured our imagination. 

So...

I have to move forward here and get to what effect that had on my comic collecting habits following last March of 2021.  I saw how speculation was driving the market and thought to find ways to capitalize on that, all while paying close attention to what the MCU and especially Disney+ had in store for us.  I saw the Falcon and the Winter Soldier was coming up but the two series that I really had my eyes on was Loki and Hawkeye.  I just had a feeling that those would be special. I should've looked to try to secure an issue of Journey into Mystery #85 at that time but it had quickly gotten out of reach for me as it still is today.  I set my sights to where the Hawkeye series was rumored to be based off of and when I read that it was going to have some elements of the Matt Fraction series, I went and accumulated the entire run with the sole purpose of flipping them as the show was airing.  This was the first time I had done anything like that and well, it didn't turn out as I had envisioned.  I believe I bought the entire set for $100 and sold it for $175.  Oh well.

Aside from that, the Fraction / Aja series is really a great read and actually one of my favorites in terms of newer books.  I love David Aja's work on it and for me, it simply added to my admiration from the work he did on the Scarlet Witch series that I had assembled some months before.

Now I know that I jumped ahead a little bit and I'll get back to Loki but I have to kind of fill in where my collecting brought me following WandaVision and in between Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Hawkeye. I know I was attacking all local comic shops in desperation trying to find these new 'keys' and speculation books but I was also focusing a little more on the books that I really liked as I was quickly seeing 2021 making so many books unaffordable! I started to feel like it was a race now... get the books that I wanted before there was any further speculative news or something else that would pop these prices up even more.  The best example I have of this was when I had heard about the Eternals movie and one specific casting.  I had always liked the cover to Avengers #48 and owned a low grade reader copy but when I heard that Jon Snow was going to be the Black Knight, I thought this news was going to break that book (in terms of value) and I needed to get a graded copy quickly.  I had been a huge Game of Thrones fan and it just seemed like the perfect marriage of having Kit Harrington portray this Marvel character who has such a deep medieval history!

I went searching for a reasonably priced copy of Avengers 48 but I knew that I had to pair that up with Avengers 47 as well which is the first appearance of Dane Whitman... the character that Kit Harrington was actually credited as portraying in the Eternals movie.  And so, after some failed attempts at securing these books, I found just the right copies on Comiclink.  This was in April of 2021 and I was so thrilled to have been able to get both of these books within minutes of each other.  I felt like I had won once again.  Maybe I beat the speculative jump... these would not be books that I would be flipping... no, these would join what was quickly becoming a solid personal collection of mine. No themed focus, just books that I've liked and for one reason or another, I felt the need to add now, before things got too crazy in this hobby.  At this time, I didn't feel like this was a bubble, I felt like there was something else at play but uncertain of what that really was. Whatever it was, I now had the Black Knight in my pocket, so to say, but there was something missing.

I needed a copy from the Atlas series as well just for historical sense.  I had owned a low grade copy of #1 but sold that while thinking to myself that I would be able to get an upgraded copy in time. Well, once the Black Knight news hit, that book skyrocketed and was now no longer in my reach... yet another previous mistake.  I looked on eBay and all of the Atlas Black Knight books had reached insane levels in terms of asking prices but I was lucky to find a raw copy here on the boards from @Readcomixthat seemed to serve my needs at the time.  The sales thread had closed but Gene was kind enough to offer me the book at the lowest price listed so I was very happy to be able to get that.

My favorite cover of the 5 issue run (after #1 of course) is this amazing rendering by Joe Maneely. 

Maybe it's my favorite because it somewhat matches my Golden Age bust statue that I've had for some years...

(Image taken from eBay)

I have a bit more to add to that Black Knight #5 but that'll be for later.  But as for the Spring of 2021, I felt that I was really getting back into the swing of things as it related to serious collecting.  I had more books in my sights and as I just wrote, it felt like it was a frenzied race to the end with many stories to follow!

...

Now back to the current timeline for a moment.  I had that birthday get together with Rob a few weeks back and it was a great time as always but he kind of surprised me with something that I'll be writing about extensively here soon enough.  I'm still not sure what to make of this but it's going to be a great story.  Just as this year is shaping up to getting close to those 'golden years' of collecting I had around 10 years ago, in a way, it's quite different.  This past week I was able to go after and get my 'signature book'. I know it's kind of cheesy to use that term but I'll be explaining that soon and maybe It'll make some sense... or maybe not.  Just like most of what I write.

Anyway, it's been a good year and so I'll end this night by pouring a Scotch and listening to this amazing studio recording of Frank Sinatra.

It just kind of feels right...

Ok.

I lied.

Frank Sinatra wasn't the end to this post... Summer Madness best describes these past two Summers!

Thank you for the kind words, and what a great read, sir!  I’m glad you’re enjoying that Black Knight. I couldn’t resist it either when I picked it up. I only part with items like that to keep me from deciding to pursue full series of some of those Golden Age short runs, which is always, always tougher than I think if I allow myself to try…(“It’s only five issues…” I tell myself…years later, still searching…)

On 8/1/2022 at 10:03 PM, Readcomix said:

Thank you for the kind words, and what a great read, sir!  I’m glad you’re enjoying that Black Knight. I couldn’t resist it either when I picked it up. I only part with items like that to keep me from deciding to pursue full series of some of those Golden Age short runs, which is always, always tougher than I think if I allow myself to try…(“It’s only five issues…” I tell myself…years later, still searching…)

I can certainly understand that!

** Breaking News **

It's only because of these recent developments that I have to risk everything here and post this very important message to David Laslav, CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery.

It's been reported that the DC Batgirl film has been shelved after spending over 70 million dollars and that you're going to focus on developing a 10 year strategy to position DC in direct competition with Marvel Studios and the MCU.  I certainly welcome this move and I'm very excited to see where this leads. 

Might I make a suggestion though? 

There's a book out there that you need to acquire.  It will set forward a path that could potentially be extremely lucrative.  I must warn you though, it is heavily guarded by the :#<>#Time Variance Authority#<>#: and any attempt to reveal these contents will be met with fierce opposition!

I have unearthed my copy in order to give you a glimpse of what could be, but be prepared... this post may soon be deleted.

Contact Rob for more information.

So, yeah.  It's Saturday Night. 

Once again. 

Let's set the mood...

It's getting harder to thread the timelines but...

Damn.

What's this interruption?

At Midnight...

Seriously?!

...

...

...

TVA - **Redacted**

"What are you even talking about? It's Saturday night, I'm posting music videos and talking about comics... What?!"

TVA - **Redacted**

"Look, here... I'll show you. It's Khruangbin."

TVA- **Redacted**

Ok.

Sorry about that...

I knew it was risky but as they say, "No risk it for the biscuit!"

...

Who says that?!

Well now...

And here I thought the DC news was going to be the BIG story for a couple of weeks.

It's sad but not surprising.

I have a very important business meeting with Rob set up for tomorrow afternoon and yes, there will be Beer involved.  At this meeting we will be discussing the current hot news regarding Green vs. Blue.  I'll add this for the moment... I've become very fond of all of the CGC labels and I think that they add legitimacy to their brand and to the hobby with the use of these labels. That being said, sometimes...

Like I said, I'll get into that a bit later...

For now though, it's trying to get back to the continuity that was 2021...

At the very end of WandaVision, I found out about this pre-order from Sideshow Toys.  After looking through the ad and the details, I was immediately hooked and hopefully I'll be able to add more to this story next month!

So let's set that aside for a moment and I have to explain my mindset going into the Spring of 2021.  I kind of felt like everything and anything was fair game in terms of buying and selling.  It was a bit surreal.  This isn't 100 percent verbatim but my thoughts pretty much revolved around the notion that "I could sell anything" and make money to obtain some books that I had been putting off.  The first book I thought of, in terms of re-acquiring, was Hulk 181 and the first appearance of Wolverine.  I thought that it was only a matter of time before he and the X-Men made their MCU debut and that time was running out to obtain his "first" appearance.  Well, it didn't take long to realize that everyone else had the same idea and that book was now well outside of my reach.  During the spring months of 2021, that particular book made some jumps and gains that I didn't think was possible. I watched 'Youtubers' (or is that "Influencers" now ) talking about this concept of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) as well as a strategy of addressing "Next Best Thing". 

Well I bit on that... the Next Best Thing. I mean if you can't afford the top key book, what do you do?  You get the next best thing and that's exactly what I did.  Little did I know that many others were employing the same strategy and it would take a sales thread here on the CGC boards in order to find that next best thing. 

And as a matter of fact, it would take me to a foreign land and one that had a bit of a risk...

I'm going to have to go to Russia.

Ok, since it's obvious that I'm stuck in the 80's... here's a message from Holly Johnson.

I switched out videos here because this one is a little better...

And this was the original. 

It's almost comical to look at this now and to think now that this was typical messaging from the 80's...

And I always wondered if three of the people in the audience were supposed to be Hall and Oates along with Freddie Mercury.

I forgot that I already posted that one.

So it seems that the hot topic of the week has had some changes... interesting.

I had that very important business meeting with Rob this afternoon that led into this evening.  It was very productive as usual and filled with good beer and good conversation.  Rob had an "off" day, in terms of the beer, but survived... barely!  I'll get to the details of this meeting in a later post but I have to mention that he surprised me with 3 awesome books. 

A solid copy of Tales to Astonish 98 (I just love that monotone blue cover), so now I have a copy that I can read that joins my CGC copy.  Along with that was a copy of Marvel Super Action 7 which reprints Captain America #105... How can you go wrong with Batroc's Brigade?!

And what a splash page...

Finally, he got me a book that I've been wanting to get for a while but kept putting off... Tales of Suspense 76 which features the 2nd appearance of Batroc and Sharon Carter (first cover appearance of Sharon Carter too). This is also the 1st appearance of Ultimo and there's a nice cameo appearance of the Mandarin in the Iron Man story.

Aside from the subscription crease, it's a very nice looking copy.

So now I have a couple of books that I'll be sending in to CGC this week, one book was the topic of our discussion this afternoon and the other is... well, a book that makes me happy to know it's back in my collection once again.

When I decided to try and get one of the two key Wolverine books (Hulk 180 / Hulk 181), as I mentioned, I saw that the Hulk 181 was way out of my reach now and surprisingly, the same thing was happening with Hulk 180.  It seemed as if the strategy of going after 'the next best thing' was being employed by many others now as well.  As I saw that book quickly getting out of reach too, in terms of what I would be comfortable paying, I had to think something along the lines of "Ok, what's the next, next best thing?"  Well, a qualified copy of Hulk 181 was way up in price and so I thought that maybe I should entertain the thought of getting a qualified copy of 180. I also realized that I had never owned that book before and this would be another nice first for me.

As I was feeling out this idea, I saw here on the boards that a member had a small sales thread featuring some choice key books.  Some of the keys in this sales thread were nice copies of Marvel Spotlight #5 (1st appearance of Ghost Rider), Amazing Spider-Man #50 (1st appearance of the Kingpin) as well as a qualified copy of Hulk #180... the FiRSt ApPeaRaNCe of Wolverine!

Yes, a perpetually debated topic... I know.

Just for fun, I'll post this little write up that appears on the Key Collector app.  It's interesting as it describes the 'movement' of the significance of this book.

Of course this debate has multiple levels and has been discussed thoroughly here on the boards but it is fun, nonetheless.  I find it interesting that three of the most prominent 'anti-heroes' in the Marvel Universe have some controversy regarding appearances. This Hulk 180 vs. 181 as the 1st Wolverine appearance... Amazing Spider-Man 299 vs. 300 with a very similar debate over Venom's 1st appearance and then there's the 2nd appearance of the Punisher with Amazing Spider-Man 134 vs. 135.  I'm sure there are others out there too that I'm missing.

Anyways, this last page in Hulk 180 is where the controversy comes in...

You have the full figure in costume, with word dialogue announcing his name along with a repeat of the character's name in the teaser for the following issue.  This is certainly NOT a Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen #134 with the first appearance of Darkseid.  I believe the official CGC notation on that one states: "1st appearance of Darkseid in cameo on last page". 

Just like Hulk 180, no?

Well in that Jimmy Olsen issue, yes you have a name revealed and you have a face...

...on a monitor screen. 

And that's pretty much that in a nutshell.

Anyways, back to finding this issue on a sales thread here...

...

It was posted by a board member that I hadn't seen before and it looked like he was relatively new and from a different country than mine and no, not Canada or the UK.  He stated at the top of his sales thread that he was in Russia and after another board member asked for references, he stated that he had never sold anything here on the boards before or on eBay.  Now I've had nothing but excellent transactions here since I joined but I had also been away for a while and as we were stepping out into this new crazy world of comics that had exploded, following the End of the World, I had to be a little cautious.  I sent a personal message to Karim ( @rfhbv100 ) at the same time that I looked through some of his posts to see what he wrote about and what his interests were. 

It was this one picture that he had posted here that filled in some of the unknown and after giving it some thought, I figured I would go ahead and try to work out a deal with him. 

You see, in this one picture, I could 'see' Karim.  Actually, I could see me.  I started out with a bookcase and had my prized books displayed like that along with other memorabilia that was so important to me.  My collection grew and ultimately that bookcase became a wall... and then two walls.  Although separated by over 6000 miles or 10,000 kilometers, it was the same story.  He was attempting to do exactly what I and so many others had done. 

And with that, I felt a connection.

I have to admit, it was a little awkward at first trying to navigate through Paypal's mechanics of transferring money overseas and I would be lying if I said I wasn't nervous that my funds would 'disappear in the ether' somewhere along the way.  It took a few tries but ultimately it looked like everything went through on my end however there was some difficulty on his end in terms of claiming these funds.  I had to break the amounts into 3 payments in order for it to work but I contacted Paypal to see if they could take a look at what I had done to make sure it looked okay.  With their reassurance, I felt pretty good about it..

This took over a day to finally figure out but once everything was sorted on the financial side, Karim sent me a message saying that the book had shipped and that he also sent some Russian candies in with the package.  He also sent me a Russia Post tracking number which I could enter to keep tabs on the book. 

I could see the package moving through Russia but after about two weeks, when I saw this last update from Russia Post, I started to get a sinking feeling in my gut when I read that the package had departed the country.  I just had no idea where it would go after leaving Russia... did it have to move across all of Europe as well or was it a single flight out of Russia to the US?

The days turned into weeks and there were no more updates on the status of the package.  Two weeks went by and then three... four, six.

It was now the beginning of May and I figured the book to be lost.  I was very disappointed at this time but I knew that it was going to be a risk especially following all of these new protocols that were installed in all of the various countries.

...

...

...

But then, one day out of the blue, a couple of weeks into May, Karim sent me a message to inform me that he was just notified that the book had arrived here in the states!  I was elated and two days after he contacted me, the book actually showed up here!  The package looked like it had seen better days and when I opened it, sure enough, there was a package of Russian chocolates.  I took the book out and saw that it had suffered some wounds... thankfully not the book, only the slab.  I informed Karim and he graciously offered to pay to have it re-slabbed. 

I declined but thanked him for his offer... I told him that I would take care of it at some other time.

The candy was very good... their chocolate has a different consistency than ours but it was quite tasty. 

As for the book, well I still haven't sent it out to be re-slabbed and I'm in no hurry to do so.  It just seems to add to this whole story as it has become one of my favorite experiences here on the boards.  As I told Karim, you can meet a lot of good people here and as I refer to him as my Russian friend, what connects us all is our love for this hobby and this medium. 

Despite global tensions and upheaval, it is common people, not governments who recognize that we are all so connected in various ways. 

...

...

That being said, here is the first appearance of Wolverine...

Scotch and Postscript...

There is a lot in this world that I have started to question.  A lot of history, a lot of "news" and a lot of things that would be categorized as gossip. A couple of years ago, I heard this interview / debate on Michael Jackson with Godfrey Danchimah.  It's an interview that still stays with me today and I would encourage people to give it a listen.  You may or may not agree with him, obviously.

We've all heard the stories about Michael Jackson but you know...

You know... I wonder.

Anyways, to put this night to bed, this is one of my favorite songs of his and it just kind of sets a bookend to the previous post.

Cheers...

Ok, so this is kind of funny but kind of illuminating as well. 

I think I detailed how that it was around this time (around the Spring of 2021) that I had fully realized that everything was fair game in this new 'hyper' world of collectibles where everyone seemed to be wanting to buy everything and anything.  I certainly profited through some sales ranging from buying and selling antique pipes to buying and selling comics, cards and general antiques. (As for the pipes, I know a thing or two about those as I first started smoking them in my early 20's before moving onto cigars... as a side-note, my paternal grandfather smoked a pipe every day and I grew very fond of the aroma but as my father, I realized that there was a lot of maintenance and patience required in doing so and as he, I found that cigars were 'easier' to accommodate.)

This is a younger picture of me (obviously ) atop a mountain in Newfoundland, Canada from 1992...

Whether it was from a local flea market or elsewhere, it just felt like there was money to be made at every turn, you just had to find the good deals.  This was one of my favorite finds in the early Spring of 2021 at a local flea market.  I believe I bought the entire lot of pipes for $100, I decided to keep a half dozen and sold the rest for almost $250!

And yes, the Chinese Opium Pipe was one that I parted with.

Shortly after this find, I had purchased a copy of the Marvel magazine, Deadly Hands of Kung Fu #19 and a nice copy of Spectacular Spider-Man #9, both for $20 from our local flea market and resold them for over $300!  These two items were the first overall appearance of the White Tiger and also in comic form. To say that this new world that I had found myself in was amazing would be an understatement!  Now of course I turned right around to the CGC boards and purchased a couple of books that I wanted, one being a nice, raw copy of Dr. Who and the Daleks from Dell (1966) as well as a book that I had sold but really liked and wanted to have back in my collection. 

That book being Batman 104... the 'Godzilla' cover. 

I just really like that imagery and thought that it would adequately replace the CGC 5.0 copy that I had sold some years ago.

Around this same time, my wife and I picked up my Daughter and her roommate from college and took them out for a day of lunch and shopping.  We ultimately found ourselves at this great used bookstore in Rochester, NY called Small World Books.  How can you go wrong with a shop if they showcase a makeshift TARDIS in the front of their door?!

We found a lot great treasures here... I found a couple of Classics Illustrated Comics, Monster Magazines, art books from Hal Foster and these Marvel trading cards that seemed to be all the rage in early 2021. 

The trading cards that I found were a near complete set of the Impel 1990 set of Marvel cards which included the (now) infamous, Stan Lee card!  I think I bought the box of cards for $30.

I decided to hang on to them, instead of reselling, because they really are unique!  At this time in 2021, this one Stan Lee card alone, was selling anywhere from $25 to $50 but like I said, it's a nice unique set to try to complete and hang onto.  I remember being all caught up in that phase with my stepson in the early 90's. I would take him to our LCS and get him packs of cards because he was all about completing sets.

For the record, he still has his NM binder of those cards.

Me?

I sell everything. 

Now, I know that I kind of teased this post...  so how is this post "Illuminating"? 

Well, it focuses around Football (interestingly enough) and it's this, that I finally realized this week as it aligned with my yearly Fantasy Football draft.

To be continued.

So this is going to transition to talking about football for a bit in order to explain something that I kind of figured out about myself...